(18) 92mins SPIDERS get a bad rap. Most of us loathe their creepy-crawly ways, and the people that do like them are often classed as weirdos who probably wear hemp. So it’s a bold move to make the main protagonist in this film a little girl so infatuated with her pet spider that she eventually allows it to massacre an entire building of people.
This is 12-year-old Charlotte (Alyla Browne) who lives in an apartment in Brooklyn with her mum, stepdad and baby sister. We first meet this creative rebel when she breaks into her great aunt’s apartment to find a spider that has just crashed through her window on an asteroid. She names the insect Sting and pops it in a jar to examine in her bedroom.
She soon discovers it has superpowers, like being able to mimic noises. Sting also likes to munch on cockroaches that Charlotte brings for it, and soon outgrows its jar. Oh, and Sting also has a desperate hunger for human flesh.
Which isn’t ideal for the occupants of her apartment. Or the bug-catchers that try to wrestle with the giant arachnid. Director Kiah Roache-Turner gives this low-budget horror a comic kick with OTT characters and some flesh-eating moments — there’s an especially horrifying moment with a tiny dog in a jumper and its alcoholic lush of an owner.
But there’s also a couple of jumps that will make even the most experienced terror-film watcher excited. The set-up of the family dynamic is decent, with a frustrated mother, an overworked stepdad and a bitter daug.
